


Good Boy, Goodbye

by Kauri



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Origins
Genre: F/M, King Alistair, my dog died and this is what came out, sad puppy fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-21
Updated: 2017-07-21
Packaged: 2018-12-05 02:33:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,017
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11568504
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kauri/pseuds/Kauri
Summary: It hadn’t happened any of the ways Alistair had imagined.He’d assumed battle. Chaos. A terrific struggle full of teeth, and blood, and soulless creatures from the deepest, darkest parts of this word. An Ogre. Or two. A broodmother. A legion of darkspawn with fangs, and claws, and pointed armor, and mindless appetite. Something heroic. Legendary. A death worthy of song.That seemed how Barkspawn, faithful mabari, survivor of the fifth blight, should go.Not this.





	Good Boy, Goodbye

It hadn’t happened any of the ways Alistair had imagined.

Not that he was macabre enough to envision the death of a beloved companion, often. But he’d assumed battle. Chaos. A terrific struggle full of teeth, and blood, and soulless creatures from the deepest, darkest parts of this word. An Ogre. Or two. A broodmother. A legion of darkspawn with fangs, and claws, and pointed armor, and mindless appetite. Something heroic.  _ Legendary. _ A death worthy of song.

_ That  _ seemed how Barkspawn, faithful mabari, survivor of the fifth blight, should go.

Not  _ this. _

A too still, too silent shape by the hearth.

A hole in the world where a friend once stood.

“Barkspawn?” His own voice seems distant. Cracked in two with shock. And he knows. He  _ knows. _ But still he calls again, voice rising with command. “Barkspawn…  _ To me.” _

But the shape by the hearth remains still and silent.

_ No… _

_ Oh no... _

Alistair sucks in a shattered breath. His frame sags against the doorway.  _ “Maker,  _ but this will break her heart.”

He’s at  Barkspawn’s side in two strides, kneeling before the hearth. Fingers winding through rust-colored fur, skipping over the odd scar here and there -- as they have a hundred, thousand times before. Besides the fire, the mabari still feels warm enough, but his limbs are starting to stiffen, and it takes a bit of effort to get the great head propped against his knee.

“She still needs you.” He whispers brokenly.  _ “I  _ still need…”

He strokes along Barkspawn’s jowls, where the ruddy fur has given way to silver and gray. They were all of them older than they once were -- Alastair himself has silver at his temples -- but he hadn’t realized…

In his prime, Barkspawn had been an unusually large and ferocious mabari. As tall as Ogren, and weighing practically as much. He’d seen the dog snap a Hurlock blade in two, teeth drawing sparks from the rotting steel. He was fast for his size, a blood-spotted streak, always where the battle was the most furious, and never more than an arm's length away from his Warden’s side.

In war, victory. In peace, vigilance. In death --

For a moment, it it though someone has punched the air from his lungs. And he clutches at Barkspawn’s ruff to steady himself. It is almost easier to believe the mabari was beset by some assassin. A sly, poisoned blade that found it’s mark.

Not  _ this. _

For a dog who had once bitten the ankles of an Archdemon, dying of old age seems too simple, and common of a death.

Memories rush through him. Tiny things. The sound that was half-whine, half-giddy  _ yelp.  _ Rumbling growls, and that tremendous  _ huff _ of reprimanding breath. Baleful looks, and dog farts, and the feel of a damp, black nose in his palm. A lolling tongue, and a dandelion puff, and moments of pure  _ joy. _

Like the time he shat in Teegan’s shoe.

Alistair laughs, breathlessly. The sound of it, thready. Twisting sharply with grief.

“I loved you…” He whispers, raggedly.  “Did you know that? Did you know you were good, and brave? Did I tell you enough?” His fingers tighten in against Barkspawn’s fur. “Did you know?”

The tears fall, and he scrubs them away furiously. Regretting, suddenly, every time he’d shooed the mabari off his bedroll or out of his bed. “I’m sorry…” He says. “So, so, sorry. I ought to have --”

“Alistair?”

He turns, drawn by the sound of her voice, and has half a moment to steady himself before she appears in the doorway. He watches the realization steal over her, watches the beautiful lines of her face grow still, and solemn. Her fingers are caught in the hem of her dark blue gown.

“Were you with him?” Her voice is barely more than a whisper.

He feels a tear drip down his long nose, “No.” The omission tears grief from him anew.

She nods, twisting her face away for a moment to hide her expression of desperate grief, before she comes to kneel beside him. Her hands do not tremble as she strokes Barkspawn’s brow, and unfolds his crumpled ear. Her touch lingers -- by long practice -- on all the places the mabari liked best to be scratched; beneath his chin, and above his hips.

“It was a better death than I might have offered him.” She says tremulously, and laughs a little. “But I didn’t… I honestly thought it would take a Hurlock…”

“Or twelve.” Alistair agrees thickly. “Or another Blight.”

She smile she gives him is wide, but it doesn’t last. Her expression crumples, and she wilts against his side, one arm slung over Barkspawn’s form.  _ Her _ grief is harder to bear than his own, and Alistair finds himself sobbing into his sleeve while she weeps. The sounds she makes are small, and heartbroken, each one hurts like an arrow sunk deep in his side.

She cries for a long, long time. And when the guards come to take Barkspawn away, she cries even harder. And stares at the empty spot on the floor until Alistair finally pulls her away.

Together, they bury him beyond the walls of Denerim, beneath the mouldering roots of a great oak tree. They mark the grave with a stone slab and one of Teegan’s favorite shoes. And when there is nothing left to do, Alistair reaches for her, and folds her in his arms.

“I’ll commission a statue.” He promises, wiping at her eyes with the hem of his tunic. “A national day of mourning. I’m the King. I can do that.”

“I’m the Queen.” She reminds him. There’s a smile on her lips, small but genuine.

“So you are.”

“You know I love you, don’t you?”

Alistair nods, tries to ignore the ache in his belly. “And you know I love you back.”

She sniffles, and kisses him gently, in reply.

They walk arm in arm, and are half way back to the castle when she asks. “What kind of statue?”

He tugs her closer. “Something that would embarrass Teegan.”

“Oh.” The corners of her mouth turn up. “Barkspawn would love that.”

 


End file.
